Saturday, June 18, 2011

Jarrett Barrios, the president of GLAAD, has just sent the board of GLAAD his resignation letter. A statement will be going out from GLAAD tonight, but GLAAD confirmed in an email that Barrios did resign. This comes following the report earlier today from Ben Smith at Politico, that the executive committee of the board had voted to remove Barrios.

The resignation capped a controversy that began with the startling news of GLAAD's backing of the AT&T/T-Mobile merger and then reports of a letter to the FCC written by GLAAD opposing net neutrality, which was later withdrawn. The circumstances around that letter had been covered up by GLAAD and Barrios, until he finally admitted he had sent the letter. Allegations that Barrios was trading favors with board members, including AT&T's Troup Coronado, were first made by former board co-chair Laurie Perper on my show last week.

Jarrett Barrios has done much for the movement,certainly as a legislator in Massachusetts, and we should thank him for his service and wish him well. Now, all the hard-working activists at GLAAD,many of whom are friends and colleagues of mine, can get back to working for LGBT rights without this distraction. The GLAAD board now must remove Troup Coronado from the board. And it has much more to do in looking at the future of the organization.

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